Statement

Inspired by the communal living and intimacy that I encountered in the countryside of Haiti, the fervor and embodied practice in both Haitian and Cuban African-based religious contexts, and my experiences in the diasporic Haitian and Cuban folkloric dance communities, my work approaches folkloric dance through Western contemporary dance methods such as improvisation, collaboration, juxtaposition, and self-reflexivity. As a white American choreographer I am conscious of my deeply ambivalent position as both outsider and insider within these dance communities. Working collaboratively with dancers and musicians and more recently in solo form, I mix and recombine movements to evoke my memories, conflicts, and imagination drawn from my experiences within Haitian and Cuban cultural communities in New York, Miami, and now Virginia as well as in Haiti and Cuba.

I performed from 2001-2008 with NYC-based Haitian and Afro-Cuban dance companies – most consistently with The Mikerline Pierre Haitian Dance Company and Felix “Pupy” Insua’s Oriki Omi Odarra. I received an M.F.A. in Experimental Choreography at the University of California at Riverside in 2010 and and previously completed an M.A. in Dance from UCLA's Department of World Arts and Cultures. I have been an Assistant Professor of Dance at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia since 2011. My choreography has been presented in Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Massachusetts, and Virginia and I present my scholarship at the international level through Congress on Research in Dance (CORD), the Society for Dance History Scholars (SDHS), and the Caribbean Studies Association (CSA). I am co-founder of ArtPile, a platform for collaborative performance in Norfolk, VA.